Your stories and pictures from Death on the Gambia

"I wanted to say that Death on the Gambia was a huge success. We love your games and we are hoping to do another in the summer!"Joseph Kim

"This run of Death on the Gambia must be the 8th or 9th time we hosted a Freeform game for our students and we will never go back to traditional murder games. Even before we started the air was thick with theories and schemes, and the players were ready to take on anything. Since the Christabel was tightly run by captain Sam, the first part of the journey went very quiet, although some guests misplaced certain valuable items. There must have been something in the air in Mansa Konko, because after leaving there the guests got restless. Much to my surprise, with Bathurst in sight there were no casualties yet, mainly because of clumsy gun-handling and effective use of medikits. In Bathurst one guest succumbed to river fever and Dexter met a nasty German surprise stepping ashore. Luckily we can remember him through the painting of the famous French artist Marie Renard, who included him in her masterpiece 'An African Safari' which she painted during the trip on the Christabel."Mark Tinnemans, Netherlands

"Death on the Gambia was a really fun game and all the guests had a great time. Surprisingly everyone stayed in character throughout the game (although when we stopped 'overnight' we ate our food out of character)"A Customer, United Kingdom

"What a BLAST! I hosted , (& played a role – which was hard) – on a 7 day cruise – I originally planned to spend 2 nights playing the game, but it was such a hit, we expanded to 4 nights! Everyone had a great time – players from age 30 to 90! We met for cocktails before dinner to play & then continued into dinner a few nights. I sent everyone their invites & character info ~ 3 weeks before the cruise; they weren't allowed to share any info, (even to spouses!) – When we boarded the ship they each received a 'packet' with info about the other characters, etc – I even made door posters with their characters, etc – (which other passengers also enjoyed!). I would definitely recommend Freeform Games, in fact, our "cruise group" has insisted we make this a tradition for all of our future cruises…"terri E, United States

"Death on the Gambia was fantastic, with great item cards and costume opportunities. It was our first Freeform game and blew the scripted games we had played previously right out of the water! I sent out full character descriptions ahead of time and I think that helped the game get off to a fast start. The game progressed just as designed with the most aggressive and murderous attacks happening near the end. We had one successful restraint, one attempted poisoning, one flesh wound, and two murders. Most people did well with their own goals and the subplots. We had Fish and Chips, Mushy Peas, and Bread Pudding for dinner. One word of warning. As Host, I tried to play another role and help my older mom with hers. The Host was busy enough just supervising Rock Paper Scissors, etc, so I think that was too much for one person. Lesson learned. Next time, I'll just Host. "Carol Blackard, United States

"The theme of Death on the Gambia really appealed to my wife and I. The props sounded great (poisonous spiders, antidotes, etcetera).
We also were interested in a summer weather game, where we could dress in costumes and not be hot and uncomfortable. What could be more perfect than Death on the Gambia as a setting!
We had not yet played a Freeform game before. This was our first. But, we had played three other murder mystery games from two other companies.
Death on the Gambia was ultra enjoyable, it has great complexity and interaction between the characters.
I cannot say this type of game is for everyone. It takes a lot of care and time to really put on a great party.
My wife really enjoys putting things together for family and friends and doesn't mind spending hours and days and weeks slowly compiling all of the things necessary for a great party
(things like, food, props, costume ideas and decorations). But as far as actually being the host of Death on the Gambia, I would say there really isn't too much you need to keep up with once the party begins.
My wife and I both acted as joint hosts (we both played Deckhands) this worked out beautifully for us!"James Barnes, United States

"The second half of Death on the Gambia saw a lot of deal making, deception, bluffing, trickery and blackmail and the denoument saw a lot of suprises."Brian Hoare, United Kingdom

"I just wanted to let you know that we had a great time with Death
on the Gambia on New Year's Eve. We've played a few conventional
murder mystery games before but we all agreed that your type of one
was more fun. There were plenty of murders by the end of the
night! Some people did get very confused but that didn't stop them
having a good time, and others were frighteningly good at stealth,
deception and trickery!
We'll certainly recommend your games to others."Becca Hoyle, Glasgow, United Kingdom

"This was my first time hosting a murder mystery party [Death on the Gambia] and it was such a blast. I emailed invitations with everyone's characters a few days before.
People got so into it and our costumes were all amazing… I was impressed, it's not easy to get a group of 20-somethings to role-play!
The game took us over 3 hours, but everyone was so surprised at how fast the time went by, there was so much to scheme about. Thanks!
Will definitely use Freeform Games again!"Haley Nielsen, United States

"The [Death on the Gambia] game on Saturday went
very well, we had so much fun. I am glad that I took the time to work on the
props as it was so funny to see everyone going through the books to see
which one it was or to see people trying to hide their cameras etc…
I have attached a picture, it was at the end of the game, we had a debrief
and they all enjoyed that as well… Looking forward to the next one!"Estelle Goodchild, Canada

"What a night!
One of the guests happened to live in a 30s colonial house stuffed with African artefacts, and letting us use it really made the [Death on the Gambia] night.
It had several staircases, "secret" rooms and a great veranda, which we used as the deck.
Everybody was scheming all over the place, but, alas, there was only one death. All I can say is, bring on the next!"Jamie Cherrington, United Kingdom

"My friends Dan, Susan and David hosted a Death on the Gambia party and we had a great time. Because of the number of people we had,
we added characters of our own and changed a few genders. We printed our own Gambian money and travel papers and
played 1930s music in the background. Some of the attendees saved the money as
souvenirs. As a group we plan to do one of these every six months."Greg Box, Texas, United States

"Great game [Death on the Gambia]! After losing his gun, the doctor strangled someone with his stethoscope and we had a 5-person shootout in the kitchen, bullets flying but no casualty (yet...)"Mark Tinnemans, Netherlands

"As promised I thought I'd drop you a line to let you know what a FANTASTIC success our Death on the Gambia evening was!
10/10!
I followed the guidance of some of your web contributors and put the poisonous spiders in a glass jar with leaves, etc; made up proper Passports - how easy (frightening!!!) it is to get them from the internet; created phials of poison, etc ,etc.
Our battle-hardened team (this was our 8th Murder, Mystery - though 1st from your company) REALLY enjoyed your way of doing things. The only comment which agrees with others on the web-site is that everyone wished they had their character info earlier. As recommended I gave this info out 1hr 30 mins prior to "start" but think (with hindsight) that it would have been better to send out with the invites. But then again - perhaps the characters WOULD have let things slip before the day ,,, who knows!
Anyway, we can THOROUGHLY recommend your company to our friends and will certainly try another of your titles later in the year.
Many thanks for all the hard work that must go into creating these!"Darroch Harkness, Renfrewshire, United Kingdom

"...the best thing about this game is that everyone has clear objectives for the night and a clear idea of what character they play. This allows them to semi-role play through the night, interpreting situations and questions and trying to achieve their objectives while assimilating new information they gain. Also, not having a murder previously committed was novel and very cool. It's dull to have a murder and try to solve it."Robin Duxfield, London, United Kingdom

"...it was excellent. The fact that no murder had taken place was a refreshing change. The aims and objectives of the characters were really well thought out and it turned us all into mad people trying to meet all our goals."Jo Holcombe, London, United Kingdom

"I have just organised and run Death on the Gambia for the leaders and wives of Exeter's Riverside Christian Centre. The game went very well and was well written and planned. A few comments: "(1) It was unclear to us until after we had received the full instructions that this particular game is not suited to a sit-down meal which we had already planned, together with an overnight stay, at a local hotel. It might be helpful in future if potential customers are informed of this before they purchase the game! [We agree -- and we'll be making that clear in the future -- Mo and Steve] "(2) However, as it happened we found the perfect way to overcome that through the co-operation of the hotel management; They had given us their 'function room', a perfect size for the dozen of us. The guests we all frantically busy until the lunchtime of the day itself and so arrived at the hotel exhausted. Few of them had had the chance to go though their detailed character notes I had sent out a week before and the rest found the notes, plus the costumes (I'd hired from a local theatrical costumiers) waiting in their hotel rooms when they arrived early in the afternoon. "I'd got the hotel to lay up three tables for 4 players each, and place three other, but bare tables around the Function room so guests could pair off, take their plates and drink and chat/scheme quietly throughout the evening. "(3) I also timed it differently; I got them all to meet me at 5.30pm for a full briefing and questions. This lasted for half an hour. I then released them to get changed, read through their (copious) notes. They reappeared in costume to be greeted by me (Captain [the host of this game used to be the Captain, although now they are the Deckhand -- Mo and Steve]) at 7.00pm. as per the game instructions. "The hotel served the starters at 7.20 and the main course 25 minutes later. I then allowed an hour and a quarter before the Christabel arrived at Mansa Konko and fifteen minutes later dessert arrived as we 'departed' M.K. "I wrapped up the game a 10.00pm and did the Epilogue cards for a further 15 minutes. "Organising the game this way made it perfectly possible to play it with a sit-down, three-course, Christmas meal. The group were ready to throw themselves into the game and saw nothing odd in taking their plates, cutlery, drink etc. off to another, bare table. "(4) One additional tip I gave them was to come to the evening with pen and notebook, and most of them wrote notes during the evening. "(5) I also used dice instead of stone/scissors/paper which worked far better for us. "A good game."Max Carpenter

"Just ran Death on the Gambia, and wanted to let you know that everyone had a lot of fun. By the end everyone was turning on each other trying to accomplish their goals in the last few minutes before the riverboat docked! "I used prop books for the Death on the Nile cards, and a great time was had by all stealing books and hiding them in various places. Our local library didn't have eight identical copies, so I went to http://www.vintagepbks.com/adamscovers.html and printed out the cover art for a paperback Death on the Nile, then resized the image in Microsoft Word and taped together my own book covers and put them onto various other hardback books. "We had some last-minute cancellations, and had to run without the character of Jane Carter. It worked pretty well... the story was that Jane was on board, and was hustled off by some unidentified men leaving all her baggage. I gave Jane's items cards to her roommate, Emily, and everything went smoothly."Jay Shaffstall, United States

"I and a group of 9 friends decided to try a murder mystery game [Death on the Gambia] this year on New Year's Eve. Our New Years celebrations are always good so, as nobody had ever done anything like this before, I was a bit apprehensive. "I would like to say that I have never laughed so much, and saw my long-standing chums in a completely different light! They were all a bit worried too about how it would work and if it would be fun but after the Christabel had set sail, there was no going back (and no stopping them). On the second leg of the journey to Bathurst, one murder was committed, two passengers were unconscious and the captain (me) [the host of this game used to be the Captain, although now they are the Deckhand -- Mo and Steve] was constantly being harassed to referee combat. When we docked at Bathurst, one of the 'passengers'even asked if we could keep cruising for a while longer! "We all thank you for helping make our New Year party the best yet. Please, please, create some more of these games, you have found a group of murder mystery converts!"Cathy Reardon, Berkshire, United Kingdom

"We hosted Death on the Gambia as our pottery class end-of-year party. We are usually just six women, and needed something which would also engage four husbands, who don't know each other very well. "We cast Alex Thomas as a woman in our story, and we added in a female Ginger Roberts character to make up numbers. Ginger had more fun than the rest of us put together -- and since she was recently diagnosed with breast cancer, it was great to see her having so much fun! "I left the costumes up to the individuals and they all did wonderfully. We used a lot of props: toy guns (we're not in the UK!); books covered in identical photocopies of DOTN covers; cameras; all sorts of bottles of multi-vitamins and jars of arnica and vaseline from my medicine chest, labelled appropriately; boxes of dried twigs and grass for the spiders to jump out of; red mosaic tiles as uncut rubies; toy handcuffs; and so on. I managed to find a large bag suitable for each character's costume and placed their props and cards into it. Soon after the Christabel's departure, Katanga handed out the luggage that 'had been left on the quayside' by mistake and everyone was encouraged to take it to their cabin to check the contents. "The first aid kits were great fun: I filled Tupperware containers with some of the usual items (scissors, plasters, tweezers) and added hilarious items such as HUGE syringes (needleless, of course!), rubber gloves, laxatives, aphrodisiac concoctions, hair-loss preparations, condoms, etc -- I got very strange looks from the pharmacist the day I shopped for the kits! The contents obviously caused great mirth amongst the players. "We had a lot of death: Alex Thomas was the first and most prolific victim, who we saved a couple of times but eventually died quite early on. (Might be nice to know this when planning, so that you don't cast your most enthusiastic guest in this role!) "We also had two weddings -- the Ginger Roberts married Katanga, Caroline Tanner married Joseph Keene. I think there was a divorce too! "In general, I think the women embraced their characters far more than the men -- although this might be because the men were already 'semi-outsiders' to the group. Having said this, they enjoyed dressing up and still managed to drink copious amounts of 'peanut beer'! Unfortunately, this was sometimes to the detriment of the plot ... (We never found out who Mr Red was ...) "All in all, we had a great evening."Lorraine Nevin, South Africa

"We wanted to host a party in the new year and decided a freeform murder mystery was the way to go. We had tried other box type games and had been very disappointed. That was not the case with Death on the Gambia. Our guests were thrilled that they could determine the plot. Everyone got into character and the scheming began. We had so much fun plotting against each other and planning alliances!! The guests did not want the night to end. "We decorated the entire house like the Christabel -- staterooms, decks, galley, bridge, map of Gambia, helm, African huts etc, the guests loved the details. The only trouble was too much leftover food -- people were too busy scheming to get a plate of finger food. No one wanted to stop, even for a minute. We all decided that we will do another game soon!! "Thanks so much for such a great evening of entertainment. I can hardly wait until next time!"Dana Loewen, Canada

"Oh my gosh, we had too much fun. Thank you for this game [Death on the Gambia]. The characters were fantastic. We ended up having enough people for all of the characters and my wife, as the deckhand, had an assistant deckhand, which she says was invaluable during the last section of the game. this was fabulous. I am telling all of my friends about this. I will be back again."Eric Christensen

"Thanks very much - I've got it [Death on the Gambia] off the web page and read it and it's just great! The themes are very different and I think my friends will enjoy it. I'm really looking forward to putting it on -- thank you very much for all your help :) (and sorry for being such a difficult customer!)"Becky, London, United Kingdom

"Thanks again for a great evenings entertainment, we played Death on the Gambia whilst on holiday in Devon in a big renovated farmhouse with lots of wooden panelling which added to the 1930s feel of the evening.
Also Fajitas for main course and crÃ¨me brule for pudding worked well as people were free to mingle."Jon Perkins, Berkshire, United Kingdom

"I loved Death on the Gambia. It was very refreshing to be playing something where there wasn't a murder to solve and the ending was completely up to my players. Everyone told me for days and days afterwards what an incredible time they had at the party -- so much that I am setting up a second one!"Satisfied Customer, Rhode Island, United States

"Thanks for your quick reply. I'm excited that you have another game for our number of players. We're going to play Death on the Gambia with another group in a few weeks and then I think we'll try Curse of the Pharaoh. This was so much more fun than the boxed, scripted sets we've played in the past. I hope you'll find time to write more of them in the future. :-)"Kristin, United States

"Death on the Gambia was fantastic. Thank you very much. Evening went far better than I'd dared hope. I was concerned that all the information would be overwhelming. Ten minutes in and I needn't have worried: furtive plotting, bravura, blackmail, paranoia and ultra-violence (disappointingly we only had one death.) Everyone said that they hadn't had so much fun in ages (big brownie points for us as hosts). People were too busy having fun even to drink!"Neil Hopkins, United Kingdom

"I hadn't realised how back-stabbing some of my friends could be. In one player we had black-mailing, murdering, lying, fighting, threatening and cheating... I'd recommend this [Death on the Gambia] to friends for a good night."Rob Steen

Death on the Gambia – Deborah Grant

Death on the Gambia – Deborah Grant

Death on the Gambia – Deborah Grant

Death on the Gambia – Deborah Grant

Death on the Gambia – Deborah Grant

Death on the Gambia – Deborah Grant

Death on the Gambia – Deborah Grant

Death on the Gambia – Melissa Midcap

Death on the Gambia – Melissa Midcap

Death on the Gambia – Melissa Midcap

Death on the Gambia – Melissa Midcap

Death on the Gambia – Melissa Midcap

Death on the Gambia – Melissa Midcap

Death on the Gambia – Melissa Midcap

Death on the Gambia – The Bone Idol – Melissa Midcap

Death on the Gambia – Joseph Kim

Death on the Gambia – Tara Kelley, US

Death on the Gambia – 'An African Safari', painted by Marie Renard during the trip on the Christabel. – Mark Tinnemans

Death on the Gambia – Kimberly Flack

Death on the Gambia – Kimberly Flack

Death on the Gambia – Kimberly Flack

Death on the Gambia – Kimberly Flack

Death on the Gambia – Kimberly Flack

Death on the Gambia – Kimberly Flack

Death on the Gambia – Kimberly Flack

Death on the Gambia – Kimberly Flack

Death on the Gambia – Nathanial McConnell

Death on the Gambia – Nathanial McConnell

Death on the Gambia – Nathanial McConnell

Death on the Gambia – Nathanial McConnell

Death on the Gambia – Nathanial McConnell

Death on the Gambia – Captain Ironheart and Joey Keene – Carol Blackard